When Jamaal Franklin grabbed a rebound in the second half against Fresno State on Wednesday night, took two dribbles, fired a no-look pass off the backboard from behind the 3-point line, caught the ball and dunked it with two hands, some of his teammates erupted off the San Diego State bench. And some didn’t.

Ho-hum. They’ve seen him do it before.

“I’ve actually seen him do it better,” said DeShawn Stephens, who was running the left lane on the 3-on-3 break. “I’ve seen him catch it and dunk one-handed – crazy.”

It’s just that the rest of the college basketball world hasn’t. Franklin’s dunk – with 15 minutes left in a 65-62 win at Fresno State’s Save Mart Center – had Twitter atwitter and was on YouTube before game’s end. By Thursday night, one clip had 58,000 views; another had 547,000.

ESPN’s SportsCenter anointed it No. 1 in their “Plays of the Day.” Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon debated whether it’s the dunk of the year on “Pardon The Interruption.”

Jason McIntyre of “The Big Lead” website skipped the debate. “Jamaal Franklin of San Diego State, congratulations!” he wrote. “You’ve been awarded the Dunk of the Year for 2013. It’s not like anything is topping this.”

Franklin shrugs. He’s not sure what all the fuss is about. He did the same dunk during his senior season at Serrano High in Phelan. He did it the following year at Westwind Prep in Phoenix, against a junior college team. He did it “four or five times” in the Drew League last summer, including late in a close game in the semifinals.

He regularly does it at practice.

“I never did it in a college game,” Franklin said, the guy who knocked out a front tooth on the rim dunking in a pickup game two summers ago, “so I guess that’s why it’s blowing up.”

He doesn’t even rate it his most difficult dunk of the season. That came Dec. 23 against Indiana State at the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu – a two-handed reverse jam off a lob from Chase Tapley … with 2:46 left … in a three-point game.

Franklin traces the genesis of Wednesday’s dunk (a video link is here) to the open gym of his youth.

“Just playing around,” he said. “I gradually figured out that it works because when you throw the ball, people think you’re throwing an alley oop to someone else. The natural reaction as a defender is to turn your head. But by the time you turn your head, the ball is already hitting off the backboard and I’m already in the air.

“The hardest part is getting the ball to the backboard, because you’re throwing the ball going so fast that you could throw it too hard. The dunk is the easy part.”

(For the record, he wasn’t credited with an assist because he passed to himself.)

The sequence started with Franklin corralling a long rebound. He turned and charged up court, with Stephens to his left and Tapley to his right. Three Fresno State players retreated, including 7-0 freshman center Robert Upshaw.

“The 7-footer, he looked for the ball,” Franklin said. “But by the time he noticed where the ball was at, I was already coming too fast. It was too late.”

Whaaaaaaam.

“I watched it on the bus going home, watched it four or five times,” said Steve Fisher, Franklin’s 67-year-old head coach, “and he did a great job setting it up. He had them spread and he knew exactly where he was going with it. They parted perfectly for him to make it work.

“That should not happen every game, 10 times a game. But I’ve always been someone who gives players freedom to make basketball plays.”

And if he had missed?

“If he had missed it, he would have looked awful and I would have looked like I had an undisciplined team,” Fisher said. “But you can’t worry about that.”

Tickets available

Saturday’s game against Colorado State, like the rest of the season, is technically sold out. You also can technically buy tickets.

A few hundred unclaimed student tickets went on sale Thursday night for $20, leftovers with students on break for another week. They are available at GoAztecs.com, Window E at Qualcomm Stadium or by calling (619) 283-7378.

Injury report

Xavier Thames’s lower back appears to be making progress, albeit slight. He participated in light work against the scout team in Thursday’s abbreviated practice, which is a far cry from live action but is more than he has been able to do all week.

Fisher listed him as doubtful for the Fresno State game, then scratched him when he couldn’t go in the morning shootaround and gave freshman Winston Shepard his first career start. Fisher upgraded Thames’ status for Saturday to “questionable.”

Another starter, forward JJ O’Brien, took a nasty spill early in the second half when he was upended on a rebound and landed hard on his back. O’Brien remained on the floor for several minutes before slowly walking off. He played only two minutes the remainder of the game.

Fisher said O’Brien was “pretty sore” and they were still awaiting results of precautionary X-rays, but that he expects him to play Saturday.

Franklin makes cut

Franklin was named to the midseason Top 25 watch list for the John R. Wooden Award, the de facto Heisman Trophy for college basketball. Only two other players from West Coast schools made the cut: Gonzaga forward Elias Harris and UNLV forward Anthony Bennett.

Franklin is now averaging a double-double (17.4 points, 10.5 rebounds) after getting 20 points and a career-high 18 rebounds against Fresno State. It was his ninth career game with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds. Kawhi Leonard had eight 20-10 performances in 70 career games, two more than Franklin has played.

LaBradford Franklin

Junior guard LaBradford Franklin returned to practice Thursday, more than three weeks after he left the team to deal with what Fisher has described as an undisclosed “family situation.” Franklin was not on in uniform for the Dec. 18 game against Point Loma Nazarene, the Christmas trip to Hawaii, Cal State Bakersfield and the Mountain West opener at Fresno State on Wednesday. He is not expected to suit up Saturday.